Last week, I posted Newark’s Outreach Effort Appears To Have Been A Sham, which highlighted how Newark school reform leaders had a plan they were going to push no matter what they learned in their “outreach” effort to residents. Today, a New Jersey newspaper reported more on the plan, which includes a massive expansion of [...]
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I was a guest on last week’s Parents As Partners webcast, and the recording is now available. This is how it’s described: Larry Ferlazzo joined the show to talk about his book Building Parent Engagement in Schools. The conversation included a discussion about the Parent Trigger and the negative impact it will have on relationships [...]
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You can read my new article in Teacher Magazine, What ‘Star Wars’ Can Teach Educators About Parent Engagement, without having to register first at this link. Also, if you want to get a smile at what some science fiction fans have to say about my article, check out Princess Leia leading the way in parent-teacher [...]
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I’ve written several posts about the unhelpful idea being pushed in Florida to have teachers grade parents. You can read a series of questions and answers with the Florida legislator making the proposal here. I’m still not convinced….
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Compton school board rejects parent trigger effort is the headline of a Los Angeles Times article today. The saga continues…
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What ‘Star Wars’ Can Teach Educators About Parent Engagement is the title of my new article in Teacher Magazine. Free, and quick, registration is required to read the entire article. Here’s how they describe it: Larry Ferlazzo says that taking the “Princess Leia approach” to working with parents can help teachers reach more positive outcomes.
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For the past several months, I have been sharing my skepticism about the extremely expensive (and, in my opinion, useless) effort undertaken in Newark to go door-to-door to ask residents what they think should be done about the schools. It was paid for by part of the $100 million donation by Facebook’s founder. Today, New [...]
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Last June, I wrote a post about The United States Department of Health and Human Services accepting proposals to form a National Center on Parent, Family and Community Engagement. The Center appears to be up-and-running or, at least, its website is. Here is how the website describes its purpose: The National Center on Parent, Family, [...]
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Lorna Costantini, the primary organizer behind the great blog and webcast series “Parents As Partners,” has graciously invited me to be the guest on their webcast this coming Monday. We’ll be discussing the “parent trigger” and the recent Florida proposal to have teachers “grade” parents. In addition, I’ll give a preview of two articles I’ve [...]
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The National PTA has put out a statement criticizing the proposed federal budget for eliminating support for Parent Information Resource Centers. I agree with that critique. However, with so many other problems with the administration’s education budget proposals, it would have been nice if the PTA had raised a few other issues, too.
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“Meet The Parents” is a nice blog post by teacher Jason Renshaw offering some practical advice for teachers trying to connect to parents. And I’m not just saying that because he says nice things about my book
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The newly-elected governor is Florida has some decidedly unhelpful ideas on what to do in the name of parent involvement. Read about them here.
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Edtweak, which periodically publishes school reform-related parodies, recently published a piece on the “parent trigger.” Here it is: Teachers Face California’s Student Trigger Law Beginning next month, any child in a failing classroom will be able to remove her teacher, simply by collecting signatures from 50% of the class’s students. The law is the brainchild [...]
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A new national parents group launched this week. Here’s an excerpt from an article about it: Parent advocates from across the country converged on New York City on Monday, February 7 for the first national forum of Parents Across America, a parent-led movement to make parent voices heard in the national debate over education reform [...]
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“State education board delays fate of ‘parent trigger’ law until March” is the headline of a Sacramento Bee article describing what happened at today’s California State Board Of Education’s meeting. In other words, it showed some wisdom. Here is an excerpt: However, the fate of the “parent trigger” is undecided as the state board decided [...]
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As regular readers know, I have very serious concerns about the so-called “parent trigger.” This California law (which may be spreading to other states) allows 51% of parents whose children attend a “low-performing” school ( or parents who will have children attending that school in the future), to sign a petition and have major changes [...]
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“Seeking Something Better Than the Trigger” by David B. Cohen may be the best article yet written about the Parent Trigger. It’s a must-read.
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“Bloomberg talks down to parents, teachers and students fighting for lives of their schools” is the headline of an article in The New York Daily News. It relates to the same event I wrote about in “Bloomberg Appears Tone Deaf.”
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Sherman Dorn, a Florida professor who always writes thoughtful posts, pushed back on my post, If It Quacks Like A Duck — Thoughts On The “Parent Trigger.” In his response, he writes that my same arguments could be used to oppose letting workers vote for a union through the “card check” process. In that situation, [...]
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Here are some links to useful new pieces on the Parent Trigger: Amina writes on the California’s Trigger law at Justice Matters Powerful “Parent” Trigger operators target vulnerable school; attack misfires by Caroline Grannan The San Jose Mercury News has an editorial in support of the parent trigger. More importantly, there are several good critical [...]
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